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Issues Facing
Missions Today: 4. Mission Strategising
I recall the enthusiasm of a mission committee back in the
1980s as its members redirected their resources and attention to the 10/40
window [the largely non-Christian region of the world lying between 10 and 40
degrees latitude north of the equator] and ‘unreached peoples.’ Here, it was thought, lay the unfinished task
to take the Gospel to the nations. Such mission
strategising clearly pointed away from ministry in, say, Rwanda, where the
statistics reported an overwhelmingly evangelised and Christian country. Just a few years later, the Rwandan genocide
took place in ‘Christian’ Rwanda. Such
strategising also took the focus away from post-Christian, northern European
countries.
In this post, I wish to challenge the use of statistics alone
to determine mission strategies and offer five topics for mission strategising instead. I’ll be the first to say that I appreciate
all the statistics, maps, and historical trends that cont…

Why Foreign
Missions? 20i. The Gospel According to Paul—Word Study: Alētheia
and Alētheuō(Truth) In addition to the words ‘Gospel,’ ‘Proclamation,’ ‘Word,’ ‘Witness,’
and ‘Mystery,’ the word ‘Truth’ (alētheia) is
also used in Paul’s letters in reference to the Gospel. A study of this word will round out my
investigation of word studies into what the content of the Gospel was for
Paul. Some further discussion on the
Gospel for Paul will follow this study. The word ‘truth’ in Paul encompasses both the Gospel and related
teaching. It also encompasses true
belief, true life, and true behaviour.
Truth is, moreover, personal, since it has to do with God himself. In this regard, it is most clearly known in
the Gospel, which is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. To reject Jesus is to reject the truth; to
accept Jesus is to receive salvation.
Again, this is not only a matter of accepting what should be believed
about Jesus—the content of truth. It is
also to enter into a true life in Christ, wh…